The Joker
by LoveThoseFlames
Summary: Deranged, psychotic, macabre, cynical, bitter, completely and totally f---ed up, and quite possibly suicidal. Six months. It was a wonder he'd lasted that long. Two options: escape or die. In Rhode's hands, neither was possible. T for torture/language AxL
1. Day ?

Day ???

I'm writing this mostly on impulse, I guess. Maybe I wanted to leave a message, some sort of epitaph that would mark my passage through this life.

Maybe I'm grasping for some kind of pathetic value to my short, pathetic existence.

Maybe I'm just crazy.

Yeah. That's definitely it.

Whatever.

Don't expect a lot of detail, (but be prepared for ample amounts of mental deterioration) I'm going to pump out this novel in all its grisly glory as fast and as hard as I can. I guess its going to be more of a short story than a novel. Can't get much of a novel out in the few weeks I have left.

I'm going to switch subjects at the speed of hyperactive toddler and I'll be boring you with little action and a hell of a lot of suffering. Try to keep up, and try not to fall asleep. Might as well try it. Trying's what got me here in the first place.

(Redundancy is the second sign of insanity. And interrupting yourself is the first)

Maybe it'll get me out.

Ever the optimist, that's me.

I hear the belated tapping of two black tap shoes and one heartless girl.

Day ???

Let's see how much I can get out here before the fun starts, and Rhode comes sauntering in to beat me half way to death and then the other half way too. Yet again.

Normally people would tell you about their name and looks and friends and about their pet dog Muffins, and all that boring shit. Yeah, well screw off, Muffins, time's running short here.

Its "Allen Walker" or so the navy-haired demon says. My memory's in pieces. Little itty-bitty teeny-weeny pieces.

When the world goes down, I did it. I know that much at least, My bad. Oops. Sorry. I tried, honestly.

On with my fleeting narrative. Can a narrative really be fleeting? Sure. Fleeting, like my life. Fleeting, like happy moments and fireflies. Fleeting, like the lives of those around me. Just because they're around me. Fleeting, like the all the fireflies I've shared with everyone I've ever met, I can try to hold on to them but they float between my fingers like so much smoke. Fleeting, like Leenalee.

Fleeting…Leenalee. Fleetalee!

Just another head case, kids…

Who the hell is Leenalee?

Apparently enduring an eternity of intense physical and psychological torture in a room that looks like the perverse blend of a checkerboard and a "toddler's" toybox fucks you up pretty bad. A deranged, blue-haired, slutty, overgrown "toddler".

This place sucks. Colossal understatement. Seriously I would be doing some mad cutting if I could. Not for lack of sharp objects, like I said, really screwed up toddler. Its that little lack of wrists that keeping me down.

Or limbs in general. Or a heart remaining in my body.

Like I said, very intense physical torture. You haven't really felt pain until you've had your entire nervous system torn out through your nail beds. That was fun. Took about three days, but turns out some disturbed para-humans have wayy too much time on their hands. It was actually kind of nice, cause I wasn't able to feel anything for a few days. Like a vacation.

Ah, the dreaded footsteps. And she's skipping too…

Day ???

She spent a whole week on it. Dropping hints here and there between daily torture sessions, always walking in with an anxious look, muttering about "stupid-ass, bloody thick-headed, so fucking determined, exorcists". She even slipped in a "can't-leave-old-man-hair-stuck-in-the-fucking-Noah's-clutches, exorcists" once. And I sucked the whole thing in like a tonic.

I began to hope again. I didn't know who Noah was and why Rhode was angry at the exorcists, but anything that pissed Rhode of made me happy.

The end of the week came all too soon, and for hours I heard sounds of a bloody battle outside. Supposedly.

Rhode later admitted to have been banging pots and pans and lighting sticks of dynamite together until the Earl yelled at her.

And then, after the crashing and clanging came to an end; a still. An apprehensive silence settled over the mindscape like a suffocating blanket, during which I slowly lost all hope in that the exorcists, the saviors who I didn't know, had prevailed. I had finally given up faith, when came the faint pattering of footsteps. I remember the next moment as clearly as any other in my memory.

The door, that I knew in my mind, _I knew_, led to nowhere, burst open.

I raised my eye (yes, eye in the singular) slowly, reverently, towards the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. There, standing in front of me, was Leenalee.

And it all came back to me. Who she was, who I was, who the Noah were, what an akuma was, why my arm was the way it was, and how the hell I got myself to where I am now. But that's another story for another day. Let's hope I'll still be able to remember it.

Leenalee was gorgeous. I mean not just good-looking, easy on the eyes, gorgeous, but authentically, genuinely, _pure_ in a sense that I had completely forgotten.

On her face was a weak smile, a peculiar topsy-turvy grimace that managed to convey pain and hope simultaneously. She was bleeding everywhere, and her arm was bent backwards at an angle that certainly didn't look comfortable, and she was probably dying all over Rhode's evil teddy bears, sure, but she was smiling. Smiling. It had been weeks since I had seen something so, so, real.

I started to cry. I don't deny it. I thought I had been all out of tears for so long, but my bloodshot eye managed to leak out a few more for the occasion.

When she saw me, her smile vanished. I admit, I couldn't have been much of a pretty picture. She took a few, hesitant, steps. And then she was crying and shouting, and I was crying in full now, and she was sprinting towards me. She ran up to me, halted suddenly a few feet away, and reached out with a shaking hand.

I closed my eyes, feeling the kind caress of the one I had missed the most for the long, long, past few months.

And opened them back into a nightmare.

Standing in front of me, or rather, rolling on the floor laughing, was Rhode.

"You should've seen the look on your face!" She managed to gasp out, and then went back to her amused flailing. It was probably the single saddest moment of my entire life. At least.

Of course, she thought it was so funny, she had to do it again. She would run outside, and come back as Lavi, and then Kanda, and then Krory, and on, and on, and on.

The hatred I feel towards her is singularly stronger than any emotion I have ever felt in my entire life. I would like to… never mind. I'm pretty sure its not legal to put that in words. But seriously, it's not half as bad as some of the stuff she's done to me. At least she would eventually die. With me, that escape is impossible.

You can't die within your own mind.

Day ???

Honestly, do you think anyone could last six months of torture at the hands of the Noah? (that questions bleeds a no, in case you aren't the brightest crayon in the box) I would have died of hemorrhages within the first hour if not for Rhode's "abilities".

Most likely, to everyone else I just look like I'm in a deep, deep, sleep. But in the confines of my own mind, I've been submitted to every form of suffering known to man. And quite a few not known to him.

I got captured by the Noah about six months ago according to Rhode. Bullshit, its been at least five years.

They took out the entire group of finders I was with and nearly took out Leenalee too. I had to make a little bargain.

Because at that moment, I didn't care if I died, I didn't care if all the Finders died, hell I didn't care if the whole damn world exploded, so long as Leenalee survived. So I made a deal: me for Leenalee's guaranteed safety.

Yeah. Riiight.

Well obviously I was idiot enough to believe the most evil people in the world, at least for the thirty seconds it took me to walk into the clutches of a fate much worse than death. The last thing I saw before everything went black, and I woke up in my own ultimate nightmare, was a prone figure slowly drowning in a pool of her own deep, maroon, blood. Damn lucky girl.

Day ???

Nothing to write about… Other than asking why I'm still capable of coherent thought…

Day ???

I had my body turned inside out today. It hurt.

I sound like a five-year old whining to mommy.

Day ???

Rhode shattered every bone in my arms and legs and told me I could go free if I could reach the door on the other side of the room. So I rolled over to the door, and it just about killed me.

She said rolling didn't count, rolled me back to where I started, severed my spinal cord, and told me to try again.

I didn't make it. And she was lying, she wasn't going to let me go free anyway.

Your welcome, Captain Obvious.

Day ???

Let's just say I'll probably be singing soprano for the rest of my life.

Day ???

Sorry that its been so long since I've last written, though you probably can't tell because I label all my entries as "Day ???". Rhode has had me convinced that I was monkey for several days and therefore I obviously couldn't write anything. I would still be trying to walk through walls if she didn't have the attention span of a six year old and accidentally let it slip while drawing a stick figure of herself on my stomach wall.

Day ???

Tyki ripped out all my organs today. Couldn't stop whining about getting his gloves dirty. Apparently he lost a bet to Rhode and that was his side of the bargain. They were standing there arguing about it as the bloody pile of my internal organs continually expanded.

And then he finally got pissed off enough that he had to leave to go cool down. I'm pretty sure he murdered at least twenty people.

I'm sure I remember him being dead already. I must be dreaming.

Oh wait… I am dreaming.

Haha. _Funny._

Day ???

I had a set of spikes sticking out of me any porcupine would be jealous of earlier today. And, I don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty sure that no one else I know can bend over and see the wall behind them through a hole in their stomach.

No one's sneaking up behind me anytime soon with that baby.

Day ???

Looks like Rhode-toad's getting serious guys. I've been so fucked up that I've been speaking twelve different languages for the past week.

The game is heating up. Now its just a test of endurance, and if I screw up just once than the world goes down the drain. Further down the drain.

Day ???

This is it. The final sprint; but both my legs are broken and Rhode's really, really, fast.

Day ???

The final sprint. Just a couple more days, and it'll all be over. A couple more days.

Yeah, bullshit, this goes on for as long as she says it goes on. She can't just be satisfied with breaking all the bones in my body, no way, that's just not good enough. She has to break my _mind_ too.

Day ???

Sprint. This is the last, final, never-ending, sprint.

Day ???

Every word, every letter, is a monumental effort. Like pushing a boulder uphill while being chased by a million tiny demons (all of which have blue hair) who poke and prick and pull at you every time you take a step forward, knowing that when you reach the top all that awaits is the cold embrace of death.

And the creepy thing is, I'm looking forward to that frost-bitten hug more than anything I have in my life.

Day ???

The final sprint…

Day ???

Just keep walking. Keep fucking walking.

Day ???

Each word breathes new meaning to the definition of pain, but I know this writing is the only thing keeping me sane.

I'm a poet and I didn't even know it.

Yeah, sane as birds.

And that made sense when I wrote it.

Day ???

Keep walking. Allen Walker. I'm beginning to understand the irony.

Day ???

I won't last much longer. It's not any sort of exaggeration or joke, its just a statement of fact. I surpassed the human limit to pain long ago and I've been sweating blood since yesterday because of the stress on my mind. Sooner rather than later this story is going to come to a sudden, violent end. Very violent.

Day ??? 

I keep on writing but I can't read

I keep on walking but I can't see

I'm sure I'm screaming but I can't hear

I'm floating and

I'm flying and

I'm falling.

But I'm not dead yet.

Hurry up.

Hurry up, Rhode.

Hurry up and kill me.

The funny thing is; I'm not joking.

!#$&() !#$&() !#$&() !#$&() !#$&() !#$

A/N: Hoo baby that was fun. I could just write whatever the hell I was thinking at the time and it totally fit into the whole "psycho exorcist" thing. Not that I'm actually entertaining suicidal thoughts, and they wouldn't be entertaining in the least anyways. I'm just trying to entertain you with this little bit of wordplay and mental war.

Alright guys, just had to get that out of my system. So this first chaptah is all first person if you hadn't noticed, I'm not sure if it will remain that way or not. Depends what you all want (but not really, I'm just trying to make you feel important). I really have no more than an extremely basic idea of where this piece of work is going and I'm not so satisfied with the way its turned out. Seems to choppy. Not that I really expected anything in the first place. I just opened up Word and found this thing sitting here and decided to put it out there to make everyone else look good. And if I ever decide to update this baby it will be at my own pace which tends to be far slower than a hyperactive toddler. DGMITS. FCPSITSGEPGEPGEP. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. Palindromes are rad. See where Allen gets it? And I don't even like Fall of Troy. Or not all of their stuff. Good times.


	2. Day 1

A/N: I switched to first person a little of the way through because that seemed much more fun and had to go back and change all the pronouns so my bad if I missed any. Might make for some awkward writing but I tried to fix it as much as possible.

Warnings for mucho blood, gore, and language, somebody tell me if I should up the rating, and let me know if anyone has a better way to change scenes please.

Day 1

_These burdens weigh me down…they weigh a hundred tons. My back is broken. They are dragging me down with them. These thoughts. These feelings. This pain. I am slowly dying, trapped within my own mind. _

_But I will fight. And I will lose, but I will drag this burden on until the day I die, fighting tooth and nail with every step I take. I will die an exorcist. I will die, an exorcist. _

A sharp jab with a blunt object and my side exploded in pain.

I blearily opened my single eye, groaning. A navy-haired, gray-skinned, black-hearted, adolescent girl's head floated into my vision; far to close to my face. Behind her was the nightmarish room which had been my home for the past seven months.

Perfectly wrapped presents were littered around the room in huge piles and menacing teddy bears sat or lay everywhere like demons in a harmless disguise. Viciously pointed candles hovered in the air, spears ready for the kill.

I saw the never-ending night sky high above, a void without the stars and moon that brought light to the real night. But of course, nothing was real here. Everything was in my mind. I groaned and shut my eye.

"Wakey, wakey, sleep times over, geezer-hair. Come on, its time to play!"

_Make me._

Rhode shouted excitedly and jabbed me again with the thick metal pole in her hands.

_I was kidding, I was just kidding!_

I doubled over on the ground and half grunted, half screamed through clenched teeth.

_Not yet. Don't show her the pain just yet._

"Hah! Try that one on for size, geezer-hair."

"Sorry, I don't speak psycho-bitch." I gasped out. "Too bad there's no psycho-bitch-to-English translators here in hell."

"Shut up and let me hear you scream, Walker." Rhode grinned evilly. And smacked me again with that damn pole. I coughed up blood, but it didn't even faze me.

_Blood-shmud, its when you start coughing up organs that you have to start worrying._

"Masochist."

In answer she took a full swing at me with her pole and I took it squarely in the stomach. I started to scream but was interrupted by my displaced stomach fluids and meals of the past coming up to greet the world for the second time (in a much less appetizing state).

_That was only half a scream. It doesn't really count._

"That's much better." Rhode said.

_I swear to God, I'm dragging you down with me when I go, slut._

I wiped blood and stomach acid from my lips and shakily stood. I leaned on a giant rectangular present with a big black bow and spoke in a quiet voice dripping with hate. "That _hurt_, you dirty child-whore fuck-head."

Rhode _tch_ed. "Come on Walker, you're better than that. Fuck-head? Seriously?"

"Shaddup Captain Pirate-hooker. And don't you think it's a little early for torture?"

"Its never too early to play with my favorite toy." Rhode said devilishly and bounced around me, dangerous metal pole still in her grip.

"And do you always break your toys?"

_Oops. Said that one out loud. _

Rhode turned to face with a look of bewilderment on her face. "There's something else you can do with them?"

"Obviously…"

Rhode spun around again and laughed mirthlessly. "I was just kidding Walker." She said. "All my toys are made to be broken."

"Hurry up and get it over with then."

_Dammit, out loud again. Get a hold of yourself Allen._

"Not yet, Walker," she smiled satanically, "The Earl wants you out of the game until he finishes stacking the deck. By that time this world will be quite considerably fucked up enough for us to just sit back and watch you exorcists and your pathetic, hopeless struggle."

"Well, well, are we done with our little speech yet, my bitchy blue-nette?"

Rhode came up right into my face and with in a quiet menacing voice said:

"Oh yes, Walker, _we are_ done, and so are all your little buddies in tights."

I couldn't help it. She threatened my nakama. I spit right in her face.

It only got about halfway there. Rhode eyed the saliva directly in front of her with a funny look on her face. It wasn't spite, or malice, or joy in cruelty, those I knew very well. It was _anger._ For the first time, I had seen Rhode angry.

I quickly realized this situation had skipped worse and gone from bad straight to downright hellish. I opened my mouth without any idea of what to say to my torturess. I never had the chance to speak, because for the second time that day, I vomited blood. And kept vomiting. I looked down in astonishment, and saw a hole in the center of my chest approximately the size of a lugie.

Over the ringing in my ears I heard a voice "Never, ever forget who is in control here, Walker."

I fell to the ground in a pool of blood, mine, I realized hazily. That's a lot of blood, I thought. The ringing grew louder.

Rhode looked at my prone body with distaste, and closed her eyes. When she opened them I was lying face down on the dry floor; the hole in my chest just a bad memory, and the ringing gone as well.

"Looks like playtimes done for today, old man, I'll be back soon with more fun." Rhode said as she planted my face into the ground with her heel. "Ta ta for now."

And with that spectacular remark, she vanished into thin air, and I was safe for another few hours.

No I would not forget anytime soon who held the power in the situation. But I remembered that strange, angered face. Even Rhode had an ounce of humanity left in her. And humans were not invincible.

[Scene Break

"Lenalee." A soothing voice whispered.

The slim sixteen-and-a-half year old in question mumbled something incomprehensibly in her sleep and rolled over.

"Lenalee, wake up." The voice spoke again, and a pair of strong hands shook the young girl gently.

As Lenalee's eyes shot open, she twirled around and grabbed the impostor's right hand and began to press hard on the center of the man's wrist.

"Ow, ow, ow, that huuuurts Lenalee!" Lavi whined as he struggled to free himself from iron grip of the surprisingly strong girl in front of him.

The pain stopped as immediately as it had began and Lavi opened his eyes to see a silver cross below him with a navy background behind it. His first thought was that Lenalee had killed him and he was entering heaven, but as his eyes followed the spine of the cross he saw a mass of shimmering dark green hair.

"Lenalee?" He questioned as he slowly knelt down to stare at the bowing girl in front of him. "Sheesh, what was that—" Lavi stopped immediately as he saw rain running down Lenalee's two ponytails and dripping off the ends to form identical glistening puddles on the hewn stone floor below.

He looked up at the sky and saw only the arched stone ceiling of the Order's personal suites, reserved solely for its exorcists.

"Ah." _Tears_, he added silently to himself.

"Please forgive me." Lenalee spoke quietly. To harm her friends, no matter how, was unforgivable.

Eyepatch just stared at her, for once at a loss for words.

Lenalee, her head still facing the floor, hair still dripping tears, repeated herself. "Forgive me, Lavi."

Lavi smacked himself on the forehead, put his hand on Lenalee's head, and patted awkwardly.

"No, you forgive me," he said, a tad michevious, "I must've spilled some of my ice water on your face." Lavi ignored the fact that he hadn't had a glass of water since yesterday, and continued to pat Lenalee's head comfortingly.

She looked up at him through tearstained eyes, and smiled bravely. "You're a horrible liar sometimes, you know."

Lavi noticed her voice still shook a little as she spoke. He wasn't an idiot. At least not completely. Something was still bothering her.

"Sometimes." He said as Lenalee stood upright. "Sometimes."

And he had more than a pretty good idea of what it was bothering her. Or who it was.

Lenalee walked into an adjacent room and Lavi began to follow, deep in thought. Lenalee turned around and stared at him until he looked up. "Excuse me?" She joked. "Do you know where you're going?"

Lavi had the decency to blush. They were standing in the decorative doorway of the master bathroom of Lenalee's suite, and she herself was fiddling with the dials that brought steaming water streaming into the huge bath in the center of the room.

"Ah, I'll just, leave, I guess…" He said awkwardly as he began to back into her bedroom.

"That would be for the best." Lenalee said, a hint of counterfeit humor still on her voice.

Lavi understood when he was being told not to bring up painful subjects. But as he crossed over to the thick wooden door he wavered, remembering the tremor in Lenalee's voice. He turned toward the velvet curtain Lenalee had drawn across the doorway.

"Lenalee—"He began. Lenalee cut him off "I dreamed about him last night." She said, voice full of an incurable pain. "Again."

"I know," he said, and sighed, "you were screaming in your sleep. That's why I woke you up."

Silence.

Lavi exited quickly, leaving Lenalee to her own storm of emotions as she found her eyes were leaking ice water for the second time already that day.

[Scene Break

Day 1 (Cont.)

_I am tired. So tired. Around me are the teddy bears, and the wrapped boxes, and the floating candles that want to stab me._

_Yeah that's a great way to go out. The headlines will read: "Boy stabbed to death by ferocious candles". Sweeeet…_

_My heavy eyelids flutter down on their own accord. Rhode will hurt me. I know this. But Rhode always hurts me, and why should I not use these few precious moments to sleep if I want to. The darkness overtakes everything._

_Soon they flicker open again to a bright, slowly swinging light. The candles and presents and bears have vanished. Back and forth, back and forth, the pendulum of light floats before me. Am I dying? I ask myself. Not likely. Rhode said she wouldn't kill me just yet. And Rhode always keeps her promises._

_I look around and see cracked concrete walls with exposed brick beneath, and a oak door that discourages any attempts to escape with looks alone. I feel a burning pain in my hands and feet, and my vision is temporarily blurred with something dark and hot flowing down my face._

_When I can see again, I turn my head half an inch, an immense effort. Before my brain even registers what I am seeing, my body reacts and I vomit loudly. Through each of my hands is a nail that fixes me to what looks like a wooden plank. Another turn of my head downwards reveals the same fate for my feet. Looking up I can see the edges of what I now realize to be branches of some sort. Their thorns bite into my head. No, not branches, but a wreath. A laurel._

_Suddenly everything clicks into place, and I realize with a pathetic moan the seriousness of my situation. Crucifixion._

_The vague thought floats through my mind that at least that would be way more macho than death by candles. I laugh, a wheeze that turns into a full blown heaving of my chest before I can stop. _

_Suddenly I see a flash of gold, wings, a tail, and the floating golden thing that was my only source of light disappears._

_Tears trickle down my face. I liked the light. It seemed, somehow, friendly. And I sure could use a friend right now._

_I sleep again._

My eyes shot open and I gasped for air like a fish out of water. I sat up immediately, more wide awake than I had been for months. I had a dream.

For all the time I had been in Rhode's prison I had never dreamt. Maybe it was because I couldn't dream within my mind, or maybe Rhode just didn't want me to unless she said so. But when I awoke I remembered the cross and the wreath on my head with a shiver, but more importantly I remembered the golden blur.

_Tim._

The hope I had gone to sleep with came rushing back and it was like the sun was shining all around me. There was still a chance, however small. I could survive. Rescue. That one small word and I was in tears.

I had hoped of rescue, for about a month or so. Nothing had happened, nothing came, and slowly it dwindled. Then Rhode decided to do her little "Rescue Walker" skit, and I hoped again.

Now for the third time, I felt that swelling in my chest, the feeling that things might go right for once. But this time, it felt genuine. I knew what I had seen, and I knew Rhode didn't know about it.

A glimpse of the real world. Just a single, tiny glimpse, but I had seen Tim. And he had flown off, for help I hoped. For _rescue_.

Just then Rhode herself came hopping in gloriously like nothing had happened earlier that day. I tried to act like I had never dreamt, and if I do say so myself, I succeeded quite well. I had become quite adept at hiding my emotions.

_Such a little girl._

We reached a small clearing surrounded by tall, colorful presents. Very intimidating presents, I might add. Rhode perched herself on a single giant teddy bear in the center of the clearing. She turned towards me, and with a jolt of terror I knew what would come next.

"Alright Al. You don't mind if I call you Al, do you?" The slut said.

"No way you dumb bi-" I started.

_Buy…more…time…_

"No one cares, now shut the fuck up Al" Rhode interjected. Harsh.

"Screw off, you damn hermaphrodite." I muttered.

"Oh dear, sounds like somebody needs a tampon."

"Enough about tampons, midget, pre-pubescants like you shouldn't know about things like that." I said.

"Ah, so what'll it be, slow dismemberment or should I sever all your tendons and ligaments and have a workout session?" Rhode asked sweetly.

I pretended to consider while swearing my head off in my mind.

"Ooh definitely the tendons one, dismemberment is so cliché nowadays." A new voice spoke up.

_That bastard is dead, for chrissakes_.

"Tyki!! I've missed you so much, where have you been all this time?" Rhode screamed shrilly as she jumped around Tyki Mikk, the one Noah Allen knew to be dead.

"I was here just last week, Rhode, you remember, Allen's pile of organs."

"Damn straight they were my organs, and your bitch little sister jumped around in them like a pile of leaves."

They both stared at me.

"Shit."

Rhode rolled her eyes and turned back towards the tall bastard. "Okey-dokey Tyki-weeky, we'll do the tendons just 'cause you asked for it."

"Thanks _Rhode_" Tyki said, emphasizing the fact he didn't add annoying rhyme endings to peoples names. For once I agreed with him.

"Do you think I could watch?" He went on.

"Sure, I always perform better with an audience."

_Fuck. Shit. Dammit._

Rhode waved her hands around and the room was plunged into darkness.

_FUCK!!!_

[Scene Break

My first sensation when the room lit again was a hard coldness on my back and behind. I sat up trembling, and stared directly at my family jewels. I was stark-naked.

"Sick bastards." I whispered to myself.

Thick red curtains with gold lace hung to my immediate right. Beneath me was a wooden stage and directly in front lay a set of deadweights.

A low mist filtered in, and the curtains were slowly drawn to the sides, revealing the rest of the room. Fancy maroon seats sat in several rows, but only a one was occupied. The tiki-fucker was sipping a from a straw and snacking on a bag of popcorn with a bored look on his face that quickly turned into one of excitement when the curtains rolled back. Rhode popped into existence next to me clad in an ornate headdress and brightly-colored robes that revealed much of her gray body.

The scene looked like a cross between a theatre event and an Aztec sacrifice, and was more than slightly ridiculous. It was funny in a really sick way.

"No one needs to see that, psycho-bitch."

_At least I'll die laughing._

In her right hand she held a night black obsidian knife. I looked down at where the knife was pointing and groaned.

"Wave bye-bye Walker, you won't be seeing those again."

I started to scream.

"On the bright side, you'll have a beautiful future in opera to look forward to after all this is over."

[Scene break

Lavi sat in his bedroom, lounging awkwardly in the hard wooden chair in front of the desk. He rocked back and forth, tapping the desk nervously. Without a mission, he was stuck here, nothing to do but think. And thinking was a very dangerous thing, these days.

He was worried, honestly. After seven long months she had finally been showing improvements. Finally, step by step, losing the haunting dullness in her once-bright eyes.

It had been that lack of feeling, that lack of anything at all, that had scared him the most when he first saw her out of the infirmary. More than when she was re-admitted to the hospital—this time not because of an injury, at least one that could be healed with mere antibiotics—more than the guards that stood outside of her curtained off room and wouldn't let him in no matter how hard he tried. More than even the leather restraints he had seen carted into the hospital wing early one morning.

Because he knew that he couldn't bear to lose another, or he would end up worse than Lenalee was.

The bookman's successor could not take sides. Could not have emotion, or comrades. The bookman's successor's only job was to record, to watch and write down everything he observed.

Yeah, right. Lavi had abandoned that mindset the second he became an exorcist, and there was no going back.

_Besides, if he just sat back and enjoyed the show, there would be nothing left to watch sooner or later._

That was his constant justification, a mantra he used to maintain his sanity as he was pulled apart by two opposing, but equal, parts of himself. Exorcist and Bookman.

Lavi sighed.

"Allen, where are you?" He asked himself.

He hadn't been able to properly concentrate for a while. For Seven months, and fourteen days, exactly. In the unavoidable in-between moments of life, the time before sleeping and after waking, meals and snacks eaten alone, the silent journeys to missions, a white-haired boy constantly hovered on the edge of his thoughts.

Lavi had been dreaming, too. Dreaming of his fifteen year old comrade—the one with the cursed eye and the claw—screaming uncontrollably, crying, bleeding. He hadn't been able to sleep well either for a while.

He always awoke with a silent scream several hours before dawn, and lay in his bed with his hands on his head until he was ready to drag himself through another cold, lonely, day.

That morning had been no different, and it had been about 3:30 when Lavi finally decided to take a walk in a hopeless effort to clear his mind. He had been marching along the fifty-seventh story of the Order's atrium, when he had heard crying and screams. The sound had originated a few floors above, a Lavi hurried up, activating his hammer on the way. Then he had recognized where he was and the worry on his face had turned to a sad understanding.

"Lenalee…" She had been hit harder by Allen's capture than anyone else, including himself. The poor girl was a wreck, physically and mentally, when she had returned from that fateful mission several months earlier, and had been one ever since.

Lavi remembered with shame the feelings he had felt then. Anger, undue, he knew, had clouded his vision. Fucking Allen. Didn't he understand that trading his own life for Lenalee had been the worst thing he could've done? An exorcist dies when he or she is supposed too, and not a moment sooner. He could've still had a chance, he could've fought instead of giving up so easily. He could still be standing here, next to Lavi, and Lenalee wouldn't be screaming in her sleep. If only Allen wasn't such a dumbass.

But there was a part of Lavi, the coldly logical part: the Bookman in him, that was saying that Allen had done the only thing he could. Instead of fighting and having two dead bodies instead of one, Allen had sacrificed himself for the girl.

"A hero 'til the end?" Lavi asked the wall.

"Nope, definitely a dumbass."

The intercom embedded in his wall blared loudly. "Lavi? Lavi are you there?" Komui's voice echoed in Lavi's room. Lavi hurried pressed the reply button on his desk "I'm here, I'm here, and keep it down, I was trying to nap" he lied.

Komui, unheeding of Lavi's words, shouted out of the intercom again excitedly "Good. Great! Go grab my little sister and get her down here, stat!" He yelled.

Lavi flinched, and then scratched his head. It had been ages since he had heard any but a blank monotone from the director. Damn you, Allen.

"Okay, okay" he said with a sigh, "but what the hell's up with you?"

"I've got news, and its about _you-know-who_." Komui said, and Lavi could practically here him hopping back and forth on his feet.

Wait a second. Wait one damn second.

"What did you just say?" Lavi asked, not even daring to hope until he heard it again.

" I said, we've got news—"

The line went silent, and Komui heard the patter of footsteps and the loud slamming of a door.

"That's more like it." He said; took a sip of coffee from his favorite mug, and did a stupid little jig.

Then Komui slipped on all the layers of paperwork that served as a second carpet for his office, screaming girlishly as he fell. The loud thud got all the Science Department wondering what had their director in such good mood.


End file.
